The present disclosure relates in general to serpentine manifolding of short straight fluid paths in honeycomb extrusion substrates and, more particularly, to serpentine manifolding structures that enable reactor optimization through variable cross-sectional area flow paths.
Chemical reactors with high reactant channel surface-to-volume ratio and large internal volumes can be configured to provide relatively short open-ended channels and relatively long internal serpentine channels by integrating a series of fluidic channel U-bend turns at opposite end faces of the reactor. U-bend turns can be formed by machining a shallow trench through a series of cells using, for example, a router and then by sealing the top of the trench using an end plate or plug material. Fluid flowing in one or more parallel channels meets the plug in the U-bend region and is redirected to flow away from the plug in one or more channels. Channels not dedicated to the relatively long serpentine path generally remain non-plugged, resulting in a large number of relatively short open-ended channels that can conduct fluid through the reactor substrate in a direction parallel to the axis of extrusion. These relatively short open-ended channels are in close proximity to the internal relatively long serpentine channels, enabling efficient heat transfer between fluids flowing in the two types of channels.